Thai Sign Language
Encyclopedia
Thai Sign Language or Modern Standard Thai Sign Language (MSTSL), is the national sign language
of Thailand
's Deaf community and is used in most parts of the country by the 20% of the estimated 56,000 pre-linguistically deaf people who go to school. Thai Sign Language was acknowledged as "the national language of deaf people in Thailand" in August 1999, in a resolution signed by the Minister of Education on behalf of the Royal Thai Government. As with many sign languages, the means of transmission to children occurs within families with signing deaf parents and in schools for the deaf. A robust process of language teaching and enculturation among deaf children has been documented and photographed in the Thai residential schools for the deaf.
Thai Sign Language is related to American Sign Language
, and belongs to the same language family
as ASL. This relatedness is due to language contact
and creolisation
that has occurred between ASL, which was introduced into deaf schools
in Thailand in the 1950s by American-trained Thai educators and at least two indigenous sign languages that were in use at the time: Old Bangkok Sign Language and Old Chiangmai Sign Language. These original sign languages probably developed in market towns and urban areas where deaf people had opportunities to meet. They are now considered moribund languages, remembered by older signers but no longer used for daily conversation. These older varieties may be related to the sign languages of Vietnam
and Laos
.
There are other moribund sign languages in the country such as Ban Khor Sign Language
.
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
of Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
's Deaf community and is used in most parts of the country by the 20% of the estimated 56,000 pre-linguistically deaf people who go to school. Thai Sign Language was acknowledged as "the national language of deaf people in Thailand" in August 1999, in a resolution signed by the Minister of Education on behalf of the Royal Thai Government. As with many sign languages, the means of transmission to children occurs within families with signing deaf parents and in schools for the deaf. A robust process of language teaching and enculturation among deaf children has been documented and photographed in the Thai residential schools for the deaf.
Thai Sign Language is related to American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, and belongs to the same language family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
as ASL. This relatedness is due to language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
and creolisation
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
that has occurred between ASL, which was introduced into deaf schools
Deaf education
Deaf education is the academic discipline concerned the education of students with various hearing capabilities in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs.Deaf education also includes the study of:* Special education...
in Thailand in the 1950s by American-trained Thai educators and at least two indigenous sign languages that were in use at the time: Old Bangkok Sign Language and Old Chiangmai Sign Language. These original sign languages probably developed in market towns and urban areas where deaf people had opportunities to meet. They are now considered moribund languages, remembered by older signers but no longer used for daily conversation. These older varieties may be related to the sign languages of Vietnam
Vietnamese sign languages
Sign language varieties in Ho Chi Minh city, Hanoi, and Haiphong are usually considered to be separate languages. However, there are attempts to develop a national standard language, Vietnamese Sign Language....
and Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
.
There are other moribund sign languages in the country such as Ban Khor Sign Language
Ban Khor Sign Language
Ban Khor Sign Language is a sign language used by about 1,000 people of a rice-farming community in the villages of Ban Khor and Plaa Pag in a remote area of Isan . Ban Khor proper and Plaa Pag are dialects, with some 80% of signs in common. It developed about 60–80 years ago due to a high number...
.
External links
- Survey report of Thai sign languages http://www.sil.org/silesr/abstract.asp?ref=2009-016